More Pre-Grouping Wagons in 4mm - the D299 appreciation thread.

[Northroader]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wI4nRD-DRpk

 

[wagonman]

The Westbury Iron Co  had a batch of wagons specifically designated as 'Pig Iron' but alas the GWR register didn't give the dimensions. On the other hand, the (post bankruptcy) New Westbury Iron Co had just the one batch of wagons and these were described as 'Coal and Pig Iron'. As they were standard Edwardian era Gloucester 10-ton 7-plank opens, the iron pigs can have done little more than cover the wagon floor.

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by wagonman

[Compound2632]

I'm wondering about the pigs in @Mark Forrest's photo and as made by Unit (interesting range, if biased towards the modern). Googling for images of pig iron mostly turns up similar, if tending to grey rather than red. These look as if they've been cast in moulds of the sort of shape one might use for a meat loaf. In @billbedford's Caley photo, we see long bars of roughly square cross section. Perhaps sand cast using a rough bit of timber as the pattern. That looks a bit more convincingly pre-grouping to me, if harder to replicate*. These billets seem to be rather loosely piled up in the wagons, though I suppose they might be shaken down in transit.

 

*Which is why we do pre-grouping, isn't it?

[Guy Rixon]

There is a product called "tin-plate bar" which is actually the ferrous stock from which the plate is rolled and later tinned. The long-square "pigs" may be that. I speculate that the elongated shape made it easier to handle in the rolling mill.

 

One might think that it didn't get out much, going straight from the casting house to the rolls, but apparently it was sometimes cast at one works and used at another. Lysaght's, for example, cast the stuff in Lincolnshire and rolled it in South Wales.

[Compound2632]

I googled "pig iron victorian" and got this:

 

 

But also this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/afB_Yw9pQF6ABgYsi_e39A which perhaps casts some more light on the bars in that Caley photo?

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
image re-inserted

[Asterix2012]

45 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm wondering about the pigs in @Mark Forrest's photo and as made by Unit (interesting range, if biased towards the modern). Googling for images of pig iron mostly turns up similar, if tending to grey rather than red. These look as if they've been cast in moulds of the sort of shape one might use for a meat loaf. In @billbedford's Caley photo, we see long bars of roughly square cross section. Perhaps sand cast using a rough bit of timber as the pattern. That looks a bit more convincingly pre-grouping to me, if harder to replicate*. These billets seem to be rather loosely piled up in the wagons, though I suppose they might be shaken down in transit.

 

*Which is why we do pre-grouping, isn't it?

Interestingly the NB had pig iron and bar iron wagons, specifically for each type of iron product.

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Asterix2012 said:

Interestingly the NB had pig iron and bar iron wagons, specifically for each type of iron product.

 

Perhaps built for specific traffic flows? 

 

The only customer-specific Midland wagons I'm aware of were the ten vacuum-fitted opens for Carr's Biscuits and the 102 manure wagons, which look to me to have been built for four contracts.

[Compound2632]

Going back to Tipton, here's a pig bed (third illustration down). This shows that pig iron was being produced locally but nit, I think, by Charles Lathe & Co. Presumably by the turn of the century, Derbyshire or Northamptonshire pig iron was becoming cheaper, the local ores being worked out. 

 

The illustration suggests pigs in the form of long bars.

[Western Star]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Perhaps built for specific traffic flows? 

 

The only customer-specific Midland wagons I'm aware of were....

Built new for specific traffic / customers probably...  I am not sure that we ever got to the bottom of the MR opens with bottom doors and sheet bars as seen in the vicinity of the smelters in the Swansea Vale region.  OK, we understand why those wagons were where they were photographed...  and why those wagons had sheet bars... I do not recollect any comment as to how such wagons came to exist given that there is no obvious record of building in the standard tomes on MR stock, nor how many of those wagons existed at that time.

 

regards, Graham

Edited March 12, 2021 by Western Star

[billbedford]

Here you are, a pig bed as the furnace is being tapped:

 

 

Photo taken in 1946

 

This was the traditional way for making pig iron. More recently, from the 80s I believe, there have been continuously casting furnaces. The pigs in@Mark Forrest's photo are probably from one of these, they certainly look like something that is designed for automatic handling 

 

 

1 hour ago, Guy Rixon said:

here is a product called "tin-plate bar" which is actually the ferrous stock from which the plate is rolled and later tinned. The long-square "pigs" may be that. I speculate that the elongated shape made it easier to handle in the rolling mill.

 

No one rolled pig iron. It was all converted into steel and rolled into billets before shipping to the rolling mills. 

Edited March 12, 2021 by billbedford

[Western Star]

4 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Going back to Tipton, here's a pig bed (third illustration down).

 

The illustration suggests pigs in the form of long bars.

What did the iron producing companies do with the sow iron?   (the long runners which fed the moulding recesses for the ingots).

 

regards,Graham

[Compound2632]

@billbedford, another superb photo. The furnace is like a sow suckling her piglets.

Edited March 12, 2021 by Compound2632

[billbedford]

6 minutes ago, Western Star said:

What did the iron producing companies do with the sow iron?   (the long runners which fed the moulding recesses for the ingots).

 

As far as I know thy were broken up and put back into the furnace. 

[Rail-Online]

On 10/03/2021 at 14:14, Mark Forrest said:

A little later than your period of interest, but here's a view of pig iron loaded in Plate wagons, possibly heading for Pensnett...

Unit Models do/did a resin cast load that fits the Parkside Plate very nicely; no doubt it could be shortened to fit earlier/shorter wagons.

That is an interesting picture of Wigston South for those that do not recognise it, I used to train spot there!  The Peak is going round what we used to call 'the triangle' from the MML towards Nuneaton, possibly from Wellingborough. The wagon works and former MR shed is in the distance to the right of the signal box.  The Brush is on an unusual short train of ECS, probably the late morning working from Derby to Cricklewood conveying the products of Litchurch Lane. The empty sidings are the carriage sidings here, used to store summer excursion stock.  The date is about 1972-3 and certainly before 1976.

 

Tony

[Rail-Online]

Regarding the Caley (and NBR) branded pig iron wagons, I believe these had beefed up floors in order to take the continued battering of the pigs being dropped in.  They may also have had stronger springs.  Thinking about it you would not want to use a wagon with and weak point such as bottom doors.  I think the Midland would use 3 plank dropside D305 for this traffic - unloading would be easier and (more importantly) less likely to damage the wagon sides.

 

Tony

[Mark Forrest]

32 minutes ago, Rail-Online said:

That is an interesting picture of Wigston South for those that do not recognise it, I used to train spot there!  The Peak is going round what we used to call 'the triangle' from the MML towards Nuneaton, possibly from Wellingborough. The wagon works and former MR shed is in the distance to the right of the signal box.  The Brush is on an unusual short train of ECS, probably the late morning working from Derby to Cricklewood conveying the products of Litchurch Lane. The empty sidings are the carriage sidings here, used to store summer excursion stock.  The date is about 1972-3 and certainly before 1976.

 

Tony

29th August 1974 (not my photo, but shared from Flickr - click on the photo for further details and caption)

[wagonman]

Pig iron loading at Westbury. You can just about make out the haphazard loading.

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by wagonman

[Compound2632]

I'm possibly beginning to se a use for all those bits of injection-moulded kit sprue! Though I suppose they're analogous to the sow iron rather than the pigs. 

[Western Star]

21 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm possibly beginning to se a use for all those bits of injection-moulded kit sprue!

Accepting that you are working in 4mm and I am working in 7mm, the photos of ingots had me searching for sprue from Games Workshop models...  some of the waste material has the same cross-section as ingots in a couple of the photos (a trapezoid shape with two short and parallel sides).

 

Anyone got suggestions of the sizes of the ingots?

[Compound2632]

4 minutes ago, Western Star said:

Anyone got suggestions of the sizes of the ingots?

 

Going from the Caley and Westbury photos, about the length of an arm and of a size to fit in the hand - around 3 ft by 3 in square?

[Dave John]

The Caley shifted large quantities of pig iron so it was worth building simple tough wagons with low fixed sides for the traffic. The final designs were 16 ton rated and did have 2 plank drop sides. 

 

I think it is a case of how companies named things. The Caley didn't have any low sided wagons for general use so would have employed a pig iron wagon for low heavy loads. 

[billbedford]

2 hours ago, Rail-Online said:

That is an interesting picture of Wigston South for those that do not recognise it, I used to train spot there!  The Peak is going round what we used to call 'the triangle' from the MML towards Nuneaton, possibly from Wellingborough. The wagon works and former MR shed is in the distance to the right of the signal box. 

 

The train would have been from Corby, The only place that far south with a blast furnaces, except for Fords at Dagenham. 

[Compound2632]

The fourth attempt at the wooden brake blocks has turned out best:

 

 

... except that I forgot to cut away the moulded safety loops. On the other hand, looking through my photos, I realised that some wagons with brakes in this style did gain them:

 

 

... but not in the same place. There's a curious bracket out from the middle bearer that supports the loop.

 

There's a detail there to remember when I get onto painting - a dap of white for the wagon label. Still not sure how to do the incised G.W.R and number on the solebar!

 

For the Midland 4-plank wagon, I've tried a more rigorous approach with free-dangling brake blocks and individual tumbler and push-rods (the latter yet to be attempted). The Ambis etch had just one cross-shaft bracket:

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2022 by Compound2632
Images re-inserted

[billbedford]

OK on the real wagons what was the strap holding the inner end of the cross shaft attached to? Essery says, to the inside of the solebar, but unless there's a spacing block that does sound right. 

[Western Star]

On GWR metal framed wagons of the late Victorian / early Edwardian period the rear support is hinged from a bearer that runs between the solebar and the "short middle" - the bearer is a piece of plate with right-angle bends at each end.